The Mine Thief

During the Cold War and the reign of the Iron Curtain, there were many unsung heroes who at great personal risks thumbed their noses at the East German regime. Some dug escape tunnels under the border while others planned escapes for friends and relatives stranded in the East. However, there are few who can compare to the exploits of Michael Gartenschlaeger who risked his life crossing over the Berlin Wall to steal mines from the East German border fence.

Michael Gartenschlaeger was born and raised in East Germany and was a teenager when the Berlin Wall was built in 1961.  Upset with the building of the Wall, Michael and four friends went on a rampage painting anti-government slogans on walls, defacing political posters, and in one last defiant act burned down a barn. The East German authorities were not amused and Micha was arrested as an enemy of the state. During his trial Micha declared "I'm not in agreement with this state because there is no freedom."  In view of his actions and attitude the court decided Micha needed to be "permanently isolated from society" and was sentenced to life in prison.1

Michael  after stealing a mine from the East German border. - source unknown
Fortunately Micha served only ten years of the sentence before he was released to the West German government for a ransom of 45,000 Deutsch Marks. In order to gain hard currency for the government's coffers, it was not uncommon for the East Germans to release political prisoners to the West if the price was right. Once free in the West, Michael moved to Hamburg but his contempt for his former jailers continued. He personally smuggled East German citizens to freedom and was also involved with escapes in the Balkan countries. His focus on escapes, however, shifted after reading an article in Der Spiegel about the new SM-70 fragmentation mine the East Germans were installing on the border fences. These mines sent an explosion of 110 cube-shaped pieces of shrapnel flying towards the unfortunate person who triggered a series of trip wires that ran along the fence. 
In an effort to mock the DDR regime, Michael decided he would climb over the border fences near Hamburg and steal one of the mines.  The fact that he could have been shot by the border guards or killed by an exploding mine didn't seem to matter to the fearless mine thief. On March 30th, 1976,  Michael waited in the woods until dark and slipped over the fence and dismantled one of the mines and brought it back to the West. The daring Mine Thief turned the mine over to a newspaper who in turn rewarded him with 12,000 Deutsch Marks for his efforts.

SM-70 mine

Michael's timing for thumbing his nose at DDR couldn't have been better. During this same time the East German Foreign Affairs Secretary was assuring the world during a press conference in Stockholm that East Germany was not using the new mines on the border.2  Michael, though, was not content with just stealing one mine. On April 23, 1976, he dismantled another SM-70 and was planning a third theft. Against the advice of his friends, Micha returned to the area of his first heist and taunted some border guards by telling them he would steal another mine. On May 1, he slipped across the border one last time. Michael Gartenschlaeger was killed by a special unit of STASI soldiers waiting in ambush.

Although his willingness to risk death by stealing the mines demonstrated his bravery, perhaps more courageous is the fact that as a teenager Michael  defiantly stood up to the East German government. Michael Gartenschlaeger was one of those unique individuals who stepped forward during the Cold War to let the world know that tyranny's prisons and border fences could not suppress freedom forever.
 

1 Peter Wyden, Wall, The Inside Story of Divided Berlin (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989) p.434.

2  http://helios.acomp.usf.edu/~abutel1/thirtyone.html

For more information on Michael Gartenschlager visit www.michael-gartenschlager.de  The site is in German but also has several pictures.